English-Inspired Garden

This past weekend, my green thumb brought me luck. Plus, it actually helped me save some green! I’m attempting to create a new garden in my front yard, inspired by the English countryside — yes, my Anglophilia is rearing its head again— and places like this:

Madonna’s English country home from Vogue, and her Cecil Beaton-inspired pad, overlooking the lush countryside.

My place is English in feeling, and I’d like to play up this angle. So, I scooped up some affordable treasures on the weekend. Look what I found!

I went to an estate sale and snagged this weathered garden bench (sans cushions) for $145! It’s perfectly covered in lichen — just the way I like it!

I bought four oversized resin terracotta pots at the same estate sale. They’re nice and crusty, too — they even fooled me into thinking they were real clay. Resin pots won’t crack in the winter, but they can cost a fortune. Mine, however, were $20 a pop! Sorry, no photo yet, but they have a basket weave like the ones above.

Later in the day I drove out to Scarborough to get some plants I saw advertised on Craigslist. For $30, I got a bag full of Baltic ivy plants and 4 boxes full of heirloom bearded iris rhizomes (above). Quite the deal, I can tell you!

Next, I swung by a local Walmart to check out their early spring offerings. Big box garden centres can be a disappointment later in the season, but in spring, everything is fresh. The best find was the rare sherbet-coloured oriental poppy. At Walmart — who knew?! A gallon pot was only $6.

Just now I’m following up on another Craigslist posting for some Shasta daisies — another English garden staple. Wish me luck!